“None of this is your business. If you think you know something that we will pay you to learn, think again. We’re not buying anything you might be selling.”
Clara murmured a protest, but it died in the face of her mother’s molten glare. Even though the accusation was unjust, it still embarrassed me, and I buttoned my coat without saying anything else.
Ernest looked from the television to me and suddenly made a connection of his own. “Puppy!” he cried. “This lady has my puppy!”
He ran from the room and came back with the picture from the pet store I’d handed him in the rehabilitation hospital. It was grimy now from much caressing.
“Allie, she’s my Allie. Big Allie is a dove, she flies with Jesus. Little Allie is my puppy.” He kissed the page, then suddenly turned red and shouted at me, “Where is she? You’re hiding little Allie. Give me little Allie!”
He grabbed my briefcase and dumped the contents on the floor. When he didn’t see a puppy, he sat on the floor and began to tear up one of my documents. Clara bent over and snatched it from him.
I gathered up my laptop, my wallet, and the rest of my possessions. Clara hunted under the couch for a lipstick that had rolled away. By the time I’d put everything away, Ernest had forgotten his outburst and was watching the Three Stooges again. I left without saying another word.
45
It’s Dangerous to Know V.I.
I sat in my car for a time trying to remember why I’d thought it was a good idea to visit the Guamans or why I’d thought I had a right to intrude on the elder Ms. Guaman when she was at the hospital with Ernest, or even why I thought I should be a private eye at all instead of a street cleaner. At least at the end of a day’s work, a street cleaner left things better than she found them.
I finally turned on the engine and drove up to my office, wondering what crises might await me there. Petra, for instance, had not been in touch. I owed Darraugh Graham a report. Terry Finchley still wanted to try Chad Vishneski for Nadia’s murder. I didn’t know where Rodney Treffer was lurking. Karen Buckley/Frannie Pindero had vanished. Plenty for the dedicated PI to do without tormenting a brain-damaged youth and his family over a nonexistent dog.
When I pulled into my parking lot, I saw Marty Jepson’s beat-up truck. I hurried into my office, imagining disasters, but Petra was there with Jepson. She’d dragooned him into helping her sort the mail.
“Vic!” she said. “What a day! So much happened!”
“Too much excitement even to contact me, O Texting Queen?”
“I dropped my phone in the slush when Marty and me were roping my car up to his truck,” she explained, “and that seemed to kill it, and don’t worry about Marty—about paying him, I mean—because I know you didn’t authorize me putting him to work. I’ll split my check with him, only, I couldn’t have managed the day without him!”
“Staff Sergeant,” I said, “if you’ve spent the day with Petra, you probably deserve some kind of battle pay.”
He blushed, and said, “Uh, ma’am, uh, Vic, it was a pleasure to help you out. Uh, I wonder if you can call me ‘Marty.’ I’m not really a Marine anymore, you know.”
“People get to be called by the highest rank they ever achieve,” I explained, “even if they’ve retired. Like, right now, Petra could be called ‘pest’ by anyone who’d like to know why she couldn’t pick up a landline.”
“Oh, Vic, don’t be such a crab cake! Your phone numbers, they’re in my cell-phone memory, which is as dead as my poor old car. You cannot believe how much they’re going to charge, although, of course, I have insurance. At least, I’m on my mom’s policy.” She stopped, sticking her lower lip out as she always did when she was thinking seriously. “Maybe I shouldn’t allow her to pay for it. But, gosh, with all my bills, and only this temp job for you—”
“I think your mother would be pleased to know you still rely on her,” I interrupted. “But I’m the one who wrecked your car, so I’ll take care of the repairs that your insurance doesn’t cover.”
“Vic, you’re an angel. I’m sorry I called you names last night.”
She launched back into a high-octane account of her day’s adventures: Destroyed cell phone! Towed car! Spilled soup on new jacket! Although the stain on the cuff maybe was the pizza they’d had at Plotzky’s last night—what a cool bar!
The avalanche of information was making me reel. I went to my back room, where I keep a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black for emergencies. I don’t approve of drinking on the job, but responding to Petra right after my painful meeting with the Guamans felt like a medical emergency to me. I offered the bottle to Petra and Marty, but neither liked whisky.
“It’s like drinking gasoline, Vic” was the fetching way my cousin put it. “Don’t you have any beer?”